Europe Must Not Be Forced Into a Nuclear War with Russia

30 March 2015, TRANSCEND Media Service – A thermonuclear war today would be not only genocidal but also omnicidal. It would kill people of all ages, babies, children, young people, mothers, fathers and grandparents, without any regard whatever for guilt or innocence.

Source: ICAN-International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Such a war would be the ultimate ecological catastrophe, destroying not only human civilization but also much of the biosphere. Each of us has a duty to work with dedication to prevent it. Europe must not be the close ally (or vassal) of the world’s greatest purveyor of violence and war.

Our Leaders Do Not Seem Interested in Protecting Us

In an important recent lecture, Institute Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT has pointed out that our leaders act to preserve their own power, and the power of the state.

They seem to have little interest in protecting the general population from destruction.

Civilians are just hostages. They are expendable. We can see this most clearly if we think of nuclear war. Nations threaten each other with “Mutually Assured Destruction”, which has the very appropriate acronym MAD.

What does this mean? Does it mean that civilians are being protected? Not at all. Instead they are threatened with complete destruction. Civilians here play the role of hostages in the power games of their leaders.

Washington’s Hubris

A symptom of the megalomania and hubris of both Napoleon and Hitler was that they undertook to invade Russia’s vast territory. In both cases, what followed was the defeat and downfall of the invaders. Today, Washington’s dark government seems to be similarly seized with megalomania and hubris.

Not only do the neo-conservatives contemplate dominance over Russia and the Middle East but also over China. As in the case of Napoleon and Hitler, the outcome must inevitably be a catastrophe.

Must Europe be involved? Must we be the accomplices in such a crime against international law and the Nuremberg principles? Must we be dragged into a war with Russia, very probably a nuclear war? Must European cities become targets for thermonuclear weapons? Are the people of Europe aware of this danger? Our mainstream media certainly do not make us sufficiently aware of it. Why are our leaders slaves to Washington’s madmen? Have they been bribed? Have they been blackmailed through secrets revealed by the massive spying of the NSA?

Russia’s Actions Have Been Defensive, Not Offensive

It is an historical fact that the United States arranged a coup that overthrew the elected government of Ukraine. There is much evidence that the coup was planned long in advance.

On December 13, 2013, US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Victoria Nuland said: “Since the declaration of Ukrainian independence in 1991, the United States has supported the Ukrainians in the development of democratic institutions and skills in promoting civil society and a good form of government… We have invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine to achieve these and other goals.” (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37599.htm).

Although Victoria Nuland’s December 13 2013 speech talks much about democracy, the people who carried out the coup in Kiev can hardly be said to be democracy’s best representatives. Many belong to the Svoboda Party, which had its roots in the Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU).

The name was an intentional reference to the Nazi Party in Germany. According to Der Spiegel’s article about SNPU, “anti-Semitism is part of the extremist party’s platform”, which rejects certain minority and human rights. The article states that in 2013, a Svoboda youth leader distributed Nazi propaganda written by Joseph Goebels.

According to the journalist Michael Goldfarb, Svoboda’s platform calls for a Ukraine that is “one race, one nation, one Fatherland”.

Since the time of the coup, Russia’s actions have been essentially defensive, rather than offensive. There is every hope that a catastrophic Third World War can be avoided if the European civil society makes its will felt, and if European leaders come to their senses. Just as the United States once declared its independence from England, Europe must now declare its independence from the United States.

*John Scales Avery, Ph.D., who was part of a group that shared the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize for their work in organizing the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network and Associate Professor Emeritus at the H.C. Ørsted Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

He is chairman of both the Danish National Pugwash Group and the Danish Peace Academy and received his training in theoretical physics and theoretical chemistry at M.I.T., the University of Chicago and the University of London. He is the author of numerous books and articles both on scientific topics and on broader social questions. His most recent book is Civilization’s Crisis in the 21st Century http://www.learndev.org/dl/Crisis21-Avery.pdf.